The Move from Doubt to Certainty; A Look at the Theories of Descartes and Locke :: essays research papers

Descartes is interested in the certainty of his origination and the existence of other mint and things. Descartes beliefs vary from those of Socrates. Descartes argues that knowledge is acquired finished aw areness and experience. Using this approach, Descartes moves through query to certainty of his existence. He asks himself various questions about the certainty of his existence and solves them through clear thought and logic. Using this method Descartes provees doubts to be truths and by the devastation of the book, he has earned that he does indeed exist. In this paper, I all(prenominal)ow show how Descartes moves through doubt to certainty. I will explain how Descartes uses the cogito, proves the existence of God and what that means to his existence. I will also discuss the frequent rules of truth that Descartes devotees. In the First Meditation Descartes begins to examine what is certain and what is doubtful. Descartes wants to establish that his knowledge is certai n and not doubtful. He states, ...I had accepted many anomalous opinions as being true, and that what I had based on such equivocal principles could only be most doubtful and uncertain so that I had to undertake seriously once in my life to rid myself of all opinions I had adopted up to then, and to begin, and to begin afresh from the foundations, if I wished to establish something firm and constant in the sciences.(Descartes 95) By this Descartes means that he wishes to establish a foundation for his knowledge based on certainty instead of doubt. Descartes first looks at the senses. This is important be defecate the senses are the first thing to cause doubt. He focuses on the perception of things. He says that things far from him, in the distance, pose him reason to doubt their certainty, while things that are close to him are clear and he is clear about their certainty. However, Descartes realizes that dreams pose an obstacle to his beliefs. Even up close, dreams can be indub itable. Descartes believes that if a person has had a dream that was so intense that the person could not determine it form reality, then they train reason to doubt objects that are close to us and appear to be indubitable. In order to resolve this problem, Descartes suggests that one must examine whether they are dreaming or not. Descartes realizes that he can not rely on his senses anymore to give him dubitable truths.